


Neighbors

by flyingwargle



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Childhood Memories, Gen, Haikyuu Month, My First AO3 Post
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-14
Updated: 2016-07-14
Packaged: 2018-07-23 22:36:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7482570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flyingwargle/pseuds/flyingwargle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kenma doesn't like his new neighbor but after having no choice but to play with him, maybe his opinion would change a bit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Neighbors

Half an hour into his day and Kenma officially dubbed it as The Worst Day of his Life. On his bed was his special limited edition Gameboy he begged his parents to buy for him, its screen blank, never again to light up. He was in the middle of a final boss battle when the screen flickered off, No matter what he did – taking the cartridge out and blowing on it, holding down buttons simultaneously, and shaking it – it didn’t turn on. Now he didn’t have an excuse to refuse his neighbor’s request to play.

His neighbor. Three days ago, he didn’t have one. The house beside his had been vacant ever since his family moved in but recently, another family had bought it. It was only a family of three, their son a year older than him, so they weren’t loud or rowdy, which Kenma liked very much. His parents were becoming great friends with them and they hoped their sons would be friends as well.

He spent a day with their son and he never wanted to do that again. He was too full of energy, always running around and jumping off of things like what every other kid did. Kenma preferred staying inside playing his games and never seeing the sun if he could. That was why his mom was always inviting the kid over to try to get him to play outside.

“Kenma-kun! Can you come down here for a minute?” she asked for him at least once a day to get him to go outside. Most of the time, he wouldn’t respond, too absorbed in his game to move. Today, though, he had to answer her call. If going outside was going to fix his Gameboy, then he would do anything.

He dragged his feet downstairs and found his mom in the kitchen washing dishes. She looked at him and said, “Tetsurou-kun is waiting for you. Why don’t you go and play with him today?”

“Can you fix this for me, please?” Kenma handed the system to her. She dried her hands before accepting it wearily, barely inspecting it.

“I’ll let your dad look at it when he comes home. In the meantime, why don’t you play with Tetsurou-kun? He’s still new and doesn’t know the neighborhood as well as you do. You can show him around.” When Kenma started shaking his head, she added, “I won’t let your dad fix it unless you play with him today.”

He slumped his shoulders. “Fine,” he mumbled in defeat. He turned and walked out of the house in his sandals, hoping he wouldn’t have to spend more than an hour outside.

“Kenma! Good morning!” his neighbor had black hair that was long and spiky, usually being a nuisance and covering his eye. He wore an old T-shirt and shorts, colorful bandages covering his arms and legs. He had a smile on his face and his ball tucked under his arm.

“Good morning…Kuroo…” Kenma was tired already.

“Let’s play volleyball! I’ll throw it to you and you can set it back to me!” Kuroo backed away to place enough distance between them. “Remember? It’s what we did last time!”

Kenma nodded. The ball hit his face more times than it fell onto the ground. Today was no different. Kuroo simply pointed and laughed most of the time, sometimes offering bad advice that didn’t help much.

“Move your wrists, Kenma! Don’t just stand there – move too!” Kuroo always set the ball perfectly back to him, usually to a spot where Kenma had to run to. “You can do it!”

It took all morning but Kenma managed to set it back to him perfectly. It turned into a rally that lasted five sets – Kenma missed since he was too tired to run anymore – but despite that, he had never felt so accomplished. It almost felt as good as beating a boss after hours of training.

“You did it!” Kuroo raised his hand for a high-five and Kenma hit it with his own, noticing belatedly how big his neighbor’s hands were compared to his. His mom shouted for them to come in to eat lunch before heading out again.

“Kenma, put on some shoes, okay?” Kuroo told him once they were finished. “We’re going to go somewhere!”

Kenma’s mom already had his socks on the floor by his shoes. He hastily slipped them on and hurried after him. “Where are we going?” he asked.

“You’ll see!” Kuroo didn’t say anymore. He headed out onto the street and started walking toward the river.

On the way, Kuroo started asking him questions, mostly about the neighborhood. Where were the best places to hide during games? Which corner store had the cheapest candy or the best snacks? Whose house should they never mess with? Kenma didn’t know majority of them – he’d rather avoid his neighbors than interact with them – but he knew which stores had better candy than some and he had memorized the directions to the game store by the station. Kuroo wasn’t interested in that but the sports store across the street from it. Kenma didn’t know there was a sports store there ever.

A familiar grassy plain soon came into view. It was a park of some sorts, the flat terrain perfect for training, barbeques, gatherings, and running around. It was usually empty during the day but was often crowded during the evening. Kenma walked passed it on his way to school but never used it for anything.

“Why are we here?” Kenma asked as they descended the stairs to reach a pile of equipment in the middle of it. “Kuroo, don’t touch that. It isn’t…”

“Mine? Well, it really isn’t, but my uncle let me have some of this stuff,” Kuroo said, looking back at him with a grin. “We’re gonna build a volleyball net.”

“A…what?” Kenma stared at the pile. There were two metal poles, a net, some rope, pegs, and a bag heaped into a pile. “But aren’t volleyball nets really tall? We’re never going to hit anything over it…”

“My uncle made sure the poles wouldn’t be too tall! Besides, if we keep playing, we’ll be tall enough in no time.” Kuroo picked one of the poles up and looked at him. “You’ll help me set it up, right, Kenma?”

It wasn’t like he had a choice. As much as he wanted to put his hands in his pockets and walk back home, he couldn’t leave him alone. He nodded. “Okay.”

“All right! Grab that pole and let’s set it up!” Kenma did as he was told. The pole was lighter than it looked.

It took them majority of the afternoon to set up the net. Kenma copied Kuroo and pegged down his pole despite not knowing the length of the net so he had to redo everything when the net couldn’t reach the pole. Kuroo showed him how to tie the net and gave him a boost so he could do it at the very top since Kuroo couldn’t reach on his own. The net was too tall for Kenma but when Kuroo gave an experimental jump, his arm barely cleared the top of it. He still looked proud and hopeful.

“One more thing! We have to write our names on it so no one but us will use it,” Kuroo said. He handed a peg to Kenma from the bag. “You can write it on the pole. My uncle said it’s okay to do that.”

“Oh…okay…” Kenma stood in front of the one he set up. He wasn’t sure where to write it so he picked a spot at his eye-level. By the time he was done, Kuroo was heading toward him.

“Your writing is so small! No one’s going to see it. Here, let me do it.” Kuroo used his peg to etch Kenma’s name in at a higher level. Kenma watched him write it in his uneven and messy script. “That looks good, right?”

“You misspelled it.”

“Huh? Really? Where?”

“Here.” Kenma pointed to the character in his first name. “You wrote something else.”

“Oh. Oh, well! It’s no big deal!” Kuroo laughed. “Let’s play some volleyball, now that we have a net!”

“But…you left your volleyball at my house.”

“Oh, yeah. I did. It’s getting late too.” Kuroo looked disappointed. “We’ll play tomorrow. Okay?”

Kenma nodded. “Okay.”

They walked home together. Kuroo retrieved his ball from Kenma’s backyard before heading home. “Bye, Kenma! See you tomorrow!”

“Bye…Kuro.” Kenma headed inside, passing by his mom in the kitchen. He mumbled his entrance, suddenly feeling drained and exhausted. Despite the fun he had, he was ready to go to bed.

“Oh, Kenma-kun, welcome back! Did you have fun today?” his mom asked him as he headed up the stairs. He nodded wordlessly. “That’s great! Will you play with Tetsurou-kun tomorrow as well?”

He nodded again before disappearing upstairs. He was going to play with him every day for as long as he was going to remember.

Maybe today wasn’t such a bad day, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is my first fic posted on AO3 - it's a bit daunting since there's so many other fics here... ^^; I hope to share more fics with you guys in the future!
> 
> I hope you enjoyed it and thank you for reading!
> 
> [main Tumblr](http://flyingwargle.tumblr.com/) | [writing Tumblr](http://anime-matchmaker.tumblr.com/)


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